


(Listen Up, Strap In) Notify Your Next of Kin

by lydia_rogue



Category: RWBY
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Team CFVY - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 13:24:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9822536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lydia_rogue/pseuds/lydia_rogue
Summary: Velvet goes down when fighting the Atlesian paladins, but she manages to get back up. However, the next member of team CFVY to go down isn't so lucky.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DaPokemonMadster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaPokemonMadster/gifts).



> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

"Coco," Yatsu asked, somehow still sounding calm despite the battle that was still raging around them. "Where's Fox?"

For the first time in over a decade, Coco turned around and Fox wasn't there.

Her blood ran cold at the empty space behind her - Fox was _always_ right there, half a step behind her. He had been since they were six, and if he wasn't there, he was leading the charge in front of her where she could watch his back.

"Fox?" His name was strangled by her too-tight throat. She looked around frantically, trying to spot his shock of copper hair in the crowd, but didn't see him anywhere.

"Yatsu, do you see him?" she asked, trying not to let him on to her panic. She took a couple deep breaths - she couldn't afford to panic right now - and focused on her teammates who were there.

Velvet was back on her feet, thankfully, but there was a nasty bruise blooming across her cheek where she'd taken a hit from the paladin.

_Get her to make sure that isn't broken_ , Coco thought to herself. A mental note that felt clinical with the numbness that settled over her when Yatsuhashi shook his head. 

"I'm going to go find him, he probably got turned around." Her words were distant, hollow. They didn't quite reach her ears intact. "Stay here, look after Velvet." She hoped they were comforting to her team - she knew Fox better than that, though.

_He doesn't get turned around, not even in battle, he always keeps track of you._

(He had, of course, gotten lost more than once, but never in a familiar place - never at Beacon.)

There were always exceptions to her sweeping statements, especially with Fox.

She tried not to think about that though. On days like this she couldn't afford to take 'normal' for granted - she had to simply accept reality and try to solve the issues presented to her one step at a time.

Right now, her issue was that Fox was missing and she had to find him. It didn't matter that under normal circumstances he never would have gone missing - what mattered was that he wasn't here now.

Someone called out to her, saying they thought they'd seen him a couple streets over, fighting an alpha.

An alpha. Any one of them could take down an alpha on their own on a good day - but today was not a good day.

Why had he wandered off? Why was he alone? Why hadn't he followed them?

The questions bounced around her head as she pointedly refused to check her scroll for his aura levels. It would just make her panic worse - she _knew_ Velvet's was drained and she was fine, so it wouldn't actually help her at all to know.

_I'm going to kill him when I find him._

There was some comfort in the thought - he would be alive and well and she could strangle him at her leisure for worrying her. But it wasn't enough when she saw a trail of blood - human, undeniably human - leading down a darkened alleyway.

There was too much of it, smearing walls and street alike, as if whoever it belonged to could barely walk as they went this way.

"Fox?" she tried, but this time she couldn't force the word out, barely managing a strangled noise in the back of her throat.

It should have been enough to get his attention - he was always listening for her - if… if… if…

There was a shape - _body_ some detached part of her brain insisted - just barely illuminated down at the far end of the street.

She put one foot in front of the other as she walked towards it. She was moving so slowly, as if trying to swim upstream through molasses.

It would have been nice to say she knelt next to his crumpled form, but in reality her knees simply gave out and she hit the cobblestone street hard.

There was no peace for him, not even in death.

His arms were thrown across his face, as if to protect himself, but there were deep gashes criss-crossing both arms, and blood had soaked through his vest. His eyes were open - unseeing as ever - but they lacked the same spark they carried in life.

" _Fox_." 

His name ripped its way out of her throat - this time as a pained and broken scream.

The only response she got was the answering cry of an alpha beowolf.

There would be time to mourn - _later, there will be time later_ , she promised herself - but for now she did the only thing she could do.

She picked up his lifeless form and cradled him in his arms. She'd take him back to Yatsu and Velvet so he could be with his family - one last time.

* * *

The crowd parted as she walked back towards her teammates. She didn't notice the way they went silent around her - their conversations weren't processing regardless. 

She simply put one foot in front of the other, staring straight ahead, all of her energy going into the simple action of walking.

It wasn't until Yatsuhashi was there, filling up her vision, did she manage to say something. "I couldn't - I couldn't save him."

Velvet's pained gasp was too loud - Coco closed her eyes and turned her head away as Yatsuhashi took Fox's body from her. 

_Body._

Gods.

She would have done anything to be in his place instead - to have saved him from this fate. 

The area around them was quiet, the grimm that had threatened this courtyard long ago killed. The other students were giving them the space they needed.

She reached out and closed Fox's eyes. She didn't have a clue what to do now - he didn't have a family to tell, there wasn't somewhere she could take him and lay him to rest. 

She sniffed and swiped at her face, realizing there were tears running unchecked down her cheeks. 

Picking at the knot in her scarf, she pulled it off and lay it down over his face like a shroud. There would be time to figure it out, right? 

"Coco?" 

She looked to Velvet, who didn't answer, just pointed down at a small child who had appeared.

Coco startled when she saw the kid - a tiny scrap of humanity pulling at her purse strap.

"Yes?" she managed to get out, throat feeling raw.

"Miss, he saved me." They gestured up at Fox's body. "He said he'd draw off the grimm and when he did to find you. He was bleeding bad and - " The child hiccuped on a sob. "He saved me. Is - is he going to be okay?"

The tears - the emotions - the everything - she'd been trying to keep down welled up all at once and she let out a broken noise, falling back to her knees and covering her face with her hands. She couldn't handle this. She couldn't be the strong leader she'd sworn to be, not when she knew Fox had died doing exactly what they had always wanted to do for the rest of their lives.

His just wasn't supposed to be this short.


End file.
